


A Risky Bet

by it_is_not_what_it_is



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, divorce fic, no beta we kyak like tim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27872881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_is_not_what_it_is/pseuds/it_is_not_what_it_is
Summary: Elias was a gamble, and Peter loved to gamble.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	A Risky Bet

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drive for months now unbeta'd, so I'd thought I'd post it. Have some lonelyeyes rambling.

Elias was a gamble, and Peter loved to gamble. Single-minded and married to his work, a union in which the zealot could be truly faithful. Though the institute employees would joke about the man’s fascination with his spreadsheets and memos, his fervor ran deeper than the blood of the warm bodies inhabiting his hall, but through the very support beams and foundation of his institute, and much, much deeper. He who wore the watcher’s crown and crafted Archivists from the traumas of this world, Jonah Magnus, Elias Bouchard. 

Peter was a bit of a zealot himself, he supposed. Elias’s vicious style of worship was certainly something, but Peter found himself more grounded by his religion than elevated. It was nearly sublime, the way in which loneliness rolled over him. The halls of the moorland house wrapped around him like a comforting embrace he can’t say he remembers ever experiencing as a child, and the sea felt like a dream. He could float away, completely lost and utterly alone. He thinks he understood what Simon meant when he claimed to have fallen in love with the sky. The vast stretch of the ocean, a house too big for the lack of family inside, it made one feel incredibly small, and delightfully lonely. 

Elias did not seem like he would allow himself to float. He was a man who would latch onto anything, fixating on it and never letting it out of his Sight, then dropping it. He seemed that way with his new Archivist. A proper pet project, Jon was all Elias could ever seem to talk about. How he was improving, his inability to actually archive, something annoying that Elias could not directly confront him about yet. Peter did not have to tell Elias how it made him feel when Elias brought up another man while lying across Peter’s chest. 

This was not the first time Elias had fixated on another during their turbulent marriage, though if Elias’s hopes for Jon were in any way founded, it may be the last. Jonah had a reputation throughout the Lukas family, passed down as if he were some precious heirloom. Old journals written by Mordechai Lukas were kept in the archive, and Peter found it funny that Elias’s new obsession with Jon was not dissimilar to Mordechai’s feelings on Barnabas Bennett, who eventually found himself embraced by the Lonely. Back when he was James Wright, He had turned his Gaze to the original Elias Bouchard, a rather useless pothead employee with unfairly attractive features. Elias, once Jonah had become Elias, remarked on how he now looked like the perfect trophy husband. Peter muttered something along the lines of him already being the family whore, to which Elias threatened a divorce, then quickly recanted, since “Elias” was not married to Peter Lukas. 

Elias sometimes focused on Peter. Why else would he have married him? Elias could get the donor money without seducing Lukas men. The Lukas family as an entity was conservative to a near fault, and they wouldn't cut off such a long-standing ally over some petty squabble. Elias was a man, with feelings, whether he liked to admit it or not. His fixations and machinations were labors of love, whether that be love of his god, his pet, or his lonely, lonely man.

Elias had left him over some very petty squabbles indeed. Once he felt that his allowance wasn’t high enough and could get more through alimony. The most paltry was probably that Peter refused to change the image of Elias that he kept in his bunk on the tundra, the reason being that it was taken in 1998, and was unflattering to his 2010 sensibilities. But Elias liked to stay. Peter could feel it, an unnatural and stifling feeling, when Elias got a little too comfortable in his flat, or liked to cling onto him a little too long after sex. Once Elias spent a weekend at the London flat, refusing to leave. Peter had to excuse himself on Sunday morning and spent the next two hours in his bathroom, wracked by panic and hoping Elias would simply get bored and leave on his own. He could feel something Watching him, and when he felt steady enough to confront the intruder upon his life, his husband gave him a kiss before leaving for his own flat. Elias loved pantomiming romance, playing into domesticity. No matter how many arguments or signed papers or legal demand the two of them went through, Elias never took off his wedding ring. He was old fashioned in that way. He didn’t believe in divorce, not really. No matter how many times he strayed, he was still a married man. Married to his work and married to Peter Lukas. 

That attachment was always a painful time for Peter. He loved Elias’s company, in small doses, and appreciated the heaps of affection Elias would show. Peter imagined that in a different life, he could have this. A loving husband, intellectually and physically stimulating, coming home to him every day. A decorated flat. Maybe children to raise. The thought crept up upon him like a sickening nostalgia for a life he never got to experience. It twisted in his gut, the dread creeping up on him. Peter likes to think that he doesn’t have a reason to separate from his husband, that he can call it off whenever he wants just to bask in the glory of Elias’ lonely soul, feel his anxieties wash over him for once. But deep down, Peter knows he leaves because Elias makes him happy. And if he can fall victim to such a sin, he is not a pious man, and there is no fear more powerful than separation from his god

Peter had never started the legal proceedings regarding divorce. Such theatrics below him. He would simply retreat to another city, or arrange another trip on the tundra, or find a bar and drink. Alone. But the feelings were too persistent, the anxiety colluding his empty thought. Not even retreating into the lonely could calm his nerves. The papers were dropped off at the institute in the morning, and Elias let himself into the flat that evening. 

“What is this?” Elias demanded, slamming the packet down on the coffee table in front of Peter. 

“I think we’ve been through this enough times for you to recognize the specific legal documents. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, the lawyer asked far too many questions.” Peter sat with a bemused smirk. 

“This isn’t like you. Why the official notice? If i’d offended you I would assume you’d already be a day out from port.” 

Peter looked up at Elias, his face neutral but his breath unsteady. 

“I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”  
Elias’s face twisted from shock and anger to disbelief. Maybe hurt? Peter had never seen him actually, truly, deeply affected. It was a painful sight to behold. 

Elias stuttered silently for a moment, likely trying to wrap his beautiful head around the information he’d been given. For all the followers of the Beholder Knew, they never really seemed to understand. 

“Peter, I know that I will often do this to prove myself in an argument or make a statement, but…” 

“I know this feel permanent. It might be. I feel that we may need some time apart.” Peter felt the realization hit Elias, heavy waves of fear rippling through the room. Elias seemed nearly to the point of tears. 

“Peter, this is entirely unfair. I have done nothing but…” 

“You have done nothing. Exactly. You don’t do anything of value to me. I pay for everything, I fund your institute. I am actually out in the world, attempting rituals, that your employee ruined, by the way, and here you are, rotting in your failed ritual attempt, running around in a body you barely worked for, playing house with me and playing god with the rest of the world.” The words felt like poison on his lips. HIs delivery was dry but he felt oily, as though the worst parts of his mind slipped out of his mouth like slugs. 

Elias composed himself. He stood up straight but it was obvious he was trembling. 

“Are you actually serious about this?” 

Peter placed his own wedding ring on the table.

Elias stormed out of the flat. 

Peter felt a rush of terror as Elias ran down the hall. He knew this wasn’t something they would ever get over. He would miss Elias. Terribly. It took most of his restraint not to follow Elias down the hallway and kiss him goodbye. The tundra was scheduled to set sail in a week, and the new picture of Elias hung in the captain’s quarters. Peter knew he would stare at it for longer than was healthy. It would rarely stare back. 

Sometimes when you gamble, you have to walk away while you’re ahead. And the embrace of the lonely was the sweetest reward.


End file.
